Welcome to my blog, I use the name of my favorite Angel St.Raphael for he is one of the 7 Holy Archangels who present the Prayers of the Saints and enter into the presence of the Glory of the Lord [ Tobit12:15] and he brings Healing. Amen,, Peace ST.Raphael

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

“Open
wide the doors to Christ,” urged John Paul II during the homily at the Mass
when he was installed as pope in 1978.

Born in Wadowice, Poland, Karol
Jozef Wojtyla had lost his mother, father and older brother before his 21st
birthday. Karol’s promising academic career at Krakow’s Jagiellonian
University was cut short by the outbreak of World War II. While working in a
quarry and a chemical factory, he enrolled in an “underground”
seminary in Kraków. Ordained in 1946, he was immediately sent to Rome where he
earned a doctorate in theology.

Back in Poland, a short assignment as
assistant pastor in a rural parish preceded his very fruitful chaplaincy for
university students. Soon he earned a doctorate in philosophy and began teaching
that subject at Poland’s University of Lublin.

Communist
officials allowed him to be appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958,
considering him a relatively harmless intellectual. They could not have been more
wrong!

He attended all four sessions of Vatican II and contributed
especially to its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World. Appointed as archbishop of Krakow in 1964, he was named a cardinal
three years later.

Elected pope in October 1978, he took the name of
his short-lived, immediate predecessor. Pope John Paul II was the first
non-Italian pope in 455 years. In time, he made pastoral visits to 124 countries,
including several with small Christian populations.

He promoted
ecumenical and interfaith initiatives, especially the 1986 Day of Prayer for World
Peace in Assisi. He visited Rome’s Main Synagogue and the Western Wall in
Jerusalem; he also established diplomatic relations between the Holy See and
Israel. He improved Catholic-Muslim relations and in 2001 visited a mosque in
Damascus, Syria.

The Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, a key event in
John Paul’s ministry, was marked by special celebrations in Rome and
elsewhere for Catholics and other Christians. Relations with the Orthodox Churches
improved considerably during his ministry as pope.

“Christ is
the center of the universe and of human history” was the opening line of his
1979 encyclical, Redeemer of the Human Race. In 1995, he described
himself to the United Nations General Assembly as “a witness to hope.”

His 1979 visit to Poland encouraged the growth of the Solidarity
movement there and the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe 10
years later. He began World Youth Day and traveled to several countries for those
celebrations. He very much wanted to visit China and the Soviet Union but the
governments in those countries prevented that.

One of the most
well-remembered photos of his pontificate was his one-on-one conversation in 1983
with Mehmet Ali Agca, who had attempted to assassinate him two years earlier.

In his 27 years of papal ministry, John Paul wrote 14 encyclicals and five
books, canonized 482 saints and beatified 1,338 people.

In the last
years of his life, he suffered from Parkinson’s disease and was forced to
cut back on some of his activities.

Comment:Before John Paul’s funeral Mass in St.
Peter’s Square, hundreds of thousands of people had waited patiently for a
brief moment to pray before his body, which lay in state inside St. Peter’s
for several days. The media coverage of his funeral was unprecedented.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then dean of the College of Cardinals and later Pope
Benedict XVI, presided at the funeral Mass and concluded his homily by saying:
“None of us can ever forget how, in that last Easter Sunday of his life, the
Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of the Apostolic
Palace and one last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi [‘to the
city and to the world’].

“We can be sure that our beloved
pope is standing today at the window of the Father’s house, that sees us and
blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of
God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the glory
of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Quote:In his 1999 Letter
to the Elderly, Pope John Paul II wrote: “Grant, O Lord of life,...when
the moment of our definitive ‘passage’ comes, that we may face it with
serenity, without regret for what we shall leave behind. For in meeting you, after
having sought you for so long, we shall find once more every authentic good which
we have known here on earth, in the company of all those who have gone before us
marked with the sign of faith and hope....Amen.”

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

"Dear children; I love you with a motherly love and with a
motherly patience I wait for your love and unity. I pray that you may be
a community of God's children, of my children. I pray that as a
community you may joyfully come back to life in the faith and in the
love of my Son. My children, I am gathering you as my apostles and am
teaching you how to bring others to come to know the love of my Son; how
to bring to them the Good News, which is my Son. Give me your open,
purified hearts and I will fill them with the love for my Son. His love
will give meaning to your life and I will walk with you. I will be with
you until the meeting with the Heavenly Father. My children, it is those
who walk towards the Heavenly Father with love and faith who will be
saved. Do not be afraid. I am with you. Put your trust in your shepherds
as my Son trusted when He chose them, and pray that they may have the
strength and the love to lead you. Thank you."

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Saint Michael the Archangel

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the Divine Power of God - cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits, who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.